Following rising global demand for aluminium products, Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) has announced it will hike production in two stages, the first occurring by the end of this year and the second by the end of 2007.

A production increase of 13 per cent has been set for the first stage and 25 per cent for the next. Dubal, a Dubai government-owned establishment, produced 761,000 tonnes of aluminium in 2005.
Khalid Essa Abdullah Buhumaid, Dubal’s general manager for corporate relations and international affairs, told Reuters that production at the end of 2006 would be 861,000 tonnes with output rising to 950,000 tonnes by the end of 2007.
Dubal is also targeting joint ventures with low-cost alumina producers in order to protect itself from price fluctuations. Last year, it signed a deal to buy 40 per cent of the output of an alumina refinery to be built by Canada’s Global Alumina Corp in Guinea.
The 2.8 million tonnes per year (tpy) refinery is expected on stream in late 2008, and the deal will ensure Dubal sticks to its expansion schedules.
“We are looking for new joint ventures with low-cost alumina producers in order to raise our production output and meet the market demand,” Buhumaid said.
Dubal’s only competitor in the Gulf Arab region is Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) with a capacity of 830,000 tonnes a year. In five years, Dubal aims to be among the world’s top five aluminium producers.
Dubal will import in 2007 three million tonnes of alumina from Australia, its main source, but it is looking for alternative suppliers.
Aluminium is the largest industry in the UAE after oil. Buhumaid said that because of booming demand in Dubai and the UAE, domestic consumption of Dubal’s output would be 10 per cent by the end of the year, up from 6 per cent in 2005.
Dubal is banking on demand from the construction industry in the world’s biggest oil exporting region where more than $1 trillion worth of infrastructure projects are in the pipeline.
Last year, Dubal unveiled plans for a $6 billion aluminium smelter complex to start operations in 2010. It will eventually have an annual capacity of 1.2 million tonnes, making it the largest of its kind in the world.
Dubal said it would supply 185,000 tonnes of aluminium to Europe in 2006.
“We have the capability to export to Europe up to 200,000 tonnes per year. However, the unfair duty is being a big obstacle for the company,” Buhumaid said.
The European Union currently imposes a 6 per cent duty on all aluminium imports from Gulf countries.